


The Job

by whichclothes



Series: Jobverse [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-25
Updated: 2010-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichclothes/pseuds/whichclothes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some time during AtS S5, Spike and Riley set out to do a job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Job

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[spike/riley](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/spike/riley), [the job](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/tag/the%20job)  
  
---|---  
  
_**The Job (1/1)**_  
**Title:** The Job    
 **Pairing:** Spike/Riley   
**Rating:** PG   
**Disclaimer:** I'm not Joss   
**Summary:** Some time during AtS S5, Spike and Riley set out to do a job.   
**AN: **Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/maleslashminis/profile)[**maleslashminis**](http://community.livejournal.com/maleslashminis/) . For [](http://community.livejournal.com/maleslashminis/profile)[**alixtii**](http://community.livejournal.com/maleslashminis/)  , who wanted this: an injury, a locked room. Thank you to [](http://blondebitz.livejournal.com/profile)[**blondebitz**](http://blondebitz.livejournal.com/)  for the wonderful banner! And many thanks to my wonderful beta, [](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/profile)[**silk_labyrinth**](http://silk-labyrinth.livejournal.com/) .  


[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/whichclothes/pic/000ccdx1/)  
---  
  
**The Job**

 

“Bugger this!”

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

They said it in unison and then, also in unison, crossed their arms over their chests. They glared at each other. And then, as they both turned to leave, Angel's arms shot out and grabbed them each by the collar.

“The job needs to be done,” he said.

“Fine,” said Spike. “Get someone else to do it.”

“Everybody else is busy, Spike. And it isn’t really official firm business, so I can’t send just anyone. Besides, we need a vampire on this.”

 “Then you go.”

“Can’t. I have that conference with the Bd’rintl clans, remember? Personally, I’d be happy to trade places, let _you_ be the one to spend three days listening to them whistle at each other. But they’re insisting on the CEO.”

Spike tried to yank himself out of his grandsire’s grip. “Then I’ll do it myself. Don’t need help from Captain Cardboard anyhow.”

Riley Finn sighed. “Yeah, except you really do. Only my eyes are gonna pass the retinal scan.”

Spike smiled evilly. “Right, then. I’ll take the eyes with me. The rest of you can stay here.”

“Spike!” Angel shook him a little. “Knock it off. Stop being such a baby about it.”

“He bloody staked me!”

Angel raised his eyebrows at Riley. Riley shrugged. “It was plastic. And he deserved it.”

Angel let go of them both and rubbed his face. “Look. It’s just a mission. Sort of an important one, but it shouldn’t take more than a few hours. Can’t you two act like grown-ups for a few hours? Is that so much to ask?”

Spike narrowed his eyes and straightened his duster, which the pouf had pulled crooked. “I want an office. With windows. And a receptionist of my own—but not Harmony!—and a paycheck.”

“But you’re not—” Angel stopped and shut his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he said, “Fine. Just go.” He turned to look at Riley unhappily. “And you. Don’t stake him, no matter how big a pain in the ass he is.”

Riley nodded sullenly.

 

***

 

They took Riley’s car, since Spike didn’t exactly own one. It wasn’t a car at all, actually, but a big, black, overcompensating-for-a-tiny-dick SUV. The two of them were silent for several miles, until Riley cleared his throat and looked at Spike out of the corner of his eye. “What the hell are you doing here, anyway? I heard you bought it in Sunnydale.”

Heard from where, Spike wondered. Had Riley been in touch with Buffy? Out loud, he said, “I died. I got over it. ‘T’s what I do. Aren’t you meant to be off with the black helicopter set? And that bird, what was her name?”

“Sam.”

“Yeah. I’ll wager she’s a real goer.”

Riley’s jaw clenched. “We’re divorced.”

“That was fast.”

To Spike’s surprise, Riley sounded sad rather than angry. “Yeah. I got tired of running around killing stuff. I wanted to settle down, maybe have some kids. She didn’t.”

“And yet here you are,” Spike said, spreading his hands, meaning not in the SUV, not on the 5 heading north, but _here_, on a mission.

Riley understood. “I got a job with this company, Simmons-Earl. Defense contractors. They liked my background and they paid well. I figured I’d work there a little while, save up some money, maybe go back to grad school. Get my PhD.”

“Sounds lovely,” Spike said with a snort.

“It would have been. Nice and normal. Not that you’d know what that means. But I was only there a few months and I find out they’re developing this—this thing. This bomb.”

“’T’s what defense contractors do, innit?” Spike just didn’t understand what had got the boy’s knickers all in a twist.

“Sometimes. But this one’s different. It’s biological warfare, sort of. It contains some sort of magic something—an ancient cursed rock, I guess—and if the rock explodes, anyone who touches the fragments or breathes the vapor gets turned into a zombie. The idea is that then these zombies will turn on anyone who comes near them, infecting them too, and so pretty soon, _bam_! Brains—it’s what’s for dinner.”

Spike made a face. “Sodding zombies.” He didn’t like them. You couldn’t eat them, they were too stupid to fight properly, and if you tried, you always ended up with rotting, stinking bits all over you. “Right, then. So why didn’t you just nick the rock yourself?”

“Because if I touch it, or anyone else does, we’re zombified. And I couldn’t think of anyplace safe to put it. So I found Buffy…does she know you’re alive? Ish?”

Spike scowled. “No. And we’ll keep it that way, yeah?”

“Whatever. She and her friends did some research and found out the rock can be…disarmed.”

“Well? How? Spit it out.”

“A vampire’s gotta touch it. ‘Cause they’re—you’re kinda not alive anyway. The undead can’t become the walking dead.”

“How comforting. So I touch it and—”

“And it nullifies the curse. But it’s kinda hard to find cooperative hos— um, vampires. So Buffy gave me Angel’s contact info.”

“So what’s the scheme, G.I. Joe? You flash your eyes to get us in, I touch the magic pebble, and we go home?”

Riley nodded and exited onto Highway 14, heading east into the desert. “And hopefully we don’t get caught. They won’t be too happy about us wrecking their toy.”

“Will you go back to work on Monday?”

“Can’t. The security system will know I was there and they’ll see us on the surveillance footage. They probably won’t know who you are, but I’m gonna have to make myself pretty scarce. Assuming we survive.”

Spike didn’t respond. He looked out into the blank darkness and thought how sometimes the simplest needs went unfulfilled. Safety. Home. Love.

When they got close to the facility, Spike hid under a plastic tarp in the back seat. The security guard called out a cheerful greeting to Riley—“You’re working late tonight, Mr. Finn”—and waved them in. Spike didn’t emerge until Riley stopped the SUV and cut the engine.

The car park was nearly empty, just a few vehicles huddled together near the building. They were all older cars, slightly beat-up little sedans and dirty pickup trucks. The cleaning crew, Spike reckoned. The ones not paid enough to afford the shiny new monsters like Riley’s.

Riley looked about furtively and then motioned for Spike to follow him. The entrance was small, a set of unmarked double doors. Riley stood close to a small box mounted on the wall and said, “Finn, Riley.” The box whirred and beeped, and the door lock clicked open. Riley and Spike slipped inside.

There was a small glassed-in security booth in the entryway. A sign on it read, VISITORS PLEASE SIGN IN HERE, but there was nobody manning the enclosure this time of night. Riley stepped confidently down the hallway and Spike followed.

The corridor was unremarkable, just scuffed white floors and ugly greenish walls. Some of the doors they passed had signs on them, and some had only numbers. It was quite dark, with only one in five of the overhead fluorescent fixtures lit, but of course that wasn’t a problem for Spike. The only sounds were the humming, buzzing bulbs, Spike’s and Riley’s boot steps, and their tandem quiet breaths. They passed several intersecting hallways, then Riley pushed a door open. A descending stairwell, dry and slightly dusty.

They took several twists and turns in the basement before Riley finally came to a door that looked as nondescript as the others. “Finn, Riley,” he said again to the little black box, making sure to put his eye close to the sensor. _Whirr, beep, click_. He turned the knob and opened the door.

They were in a small, plain room. Directly in the center was a very solid-looking metal box roughly the size of a small refrigerator. There was an electronic keypad on its front. Riley marched over to it and then began punching in numbers. “Hacked into the system to get this. Their security’s not nearly as good as they think it is”—the box emitted a loud dinging noise, then was silent—“which is one of the reasons they have no business with a weapon like this.” He bent over to see the keypad more closely. Despite himself, Spike admired the view. The boy had a lovely arse. Christ, it had been far too long since Spike had got a leg over.

After a few more seconds, Riley grunted slightly and stood up straight. He walked away, until he was very close to the door. “It’s open,” he said.

Spike went closer to the box. Hoping he didn’t look as tentative as he felt, he reached out and tugged on the front of it. It swung open easily. The inside of the box was mostly empty. There was just a single shelf, and on that rested another metal box, this one roughly six inches on each side.

“Is it in there?” Riley asked, because Spike’s body was blocking his view.

Spike looked back at him over his shoulder. “There’s another box.”

Riley jerked his chin up toward the ceiling, where a video camera was aimed at Spike, its tiny red light blinking. “We don’t have all night.”

Spike picked up the small box; it was quite heavy. He turned it over in his hands, trying to suss out how it opened. He discovered a tiny indentation. When he pressed it, the top sprang open so suddenly Spike nearly dropped the thing.

The inside of the box was lined in a heavy, slightly oily-feeling fabric. More of the dark fabric enveloped a round object. Carefully, wishing he’d refused Angel unequivocally, Spike tugged at the material. Yeah, the soldier boy said the stone couldn’t harm him, but what if Riley was wrong? Or lying. He wouldn’t care if Spike were sacrificed. He’d probably be thrilled to be rid of him, actually.

When the fabric was bunched to the side, Spike could see the stone itself. It was slightly transparent and lavender-colored. Polished quartz, perhaps. Or not. Spike didn’t know much about rocks.

“If I turn into a zombie, I’m eating you first,” he said to Riley, who didn’t look impressed. Spike touched the smooth surface of the stone with a single finger.

_POP!_ Spike felt as if he’d received the biggest dose of static electricity ever and he was nearly blinded by a flash of light. He yelped and dropped the box, which clattered noisily to the concrete floor. To his surprise, Riley didn’t run away, but instead drew a gun from under his jacket and charged to Spike’s side.

“Are you…okay?” Riley asked.

Spike looked at his own hand. It looked the same as ever. He didn’t feel any different than usual. How would he know if he were turning into a zombie? His heart had already stopped beating over a hundred years earlier. Would he suddenly be overtaken with the urge to nosh on someone’s gray matter? “I expect so,” he said in response to Riley's question.

They both looked down. The stone had tumbled from the box and lay on the floor, still half-shrouded but innocuous-looking. “Do you think it’s safe?” asked Riley.

“How would I know?”

Riley hesitated a moment, then shrugged, stooped, and scooped the rock into his palm. The fabric fell to the floor, but nothing else happened. They both waited a moment with the stone cradled in Riley’s palm. “Well, I don’t feel any different,” Riley said.

Spike strolled around the big man, looking at him, listening to the thump of his heart and the whoosh of his blood, sniffing at him. He smelled of Ivory soap and pepperoni—pizza for dinner, then—and laundry detergent and shampoo and Old Spice deodorant. He smelled warm and human and, Spike realized as his own stomach rumbled a bit, delicious. “Perhaps it takes a bit for the rot to set in,” he said.

“Well, we don’t have time to wait.” Riley dropped the stone into a jacket pocket, zipped the pocket up, and strode to the door. “Let’s go.”

The hallway was still empty. Riley ran for the stairs, his long legs covering the ground quickly enough that Spike had to exert some effort to keep up. _Thud-thud-thud-thud_ went their footsteps, echoing like gunshots off the hard surfaces of the walls and ceiling. It was only when they reached the top of the stairs that Spike heard the answering stomp of people approaching from the direction of the building’s main entrance. Several people, by the sound of it. “Hurry up!” Spike said, and grabbed hold of Riley’s arm. Spike dragged him away from the approaching footsteps as he asked, “Is there a back door in this place?”

“Yeah,” Riley said, a little breathlessly. “This way.”

They made several turns, their pursuers getting steadily closer. Spike could have outrun them himself, but of course he had no bloody clue where the exit was, and he had to wait for Riley. Who perhaps hadn’t kept up his exercising as much as he should have.

“Riley,” Spike warned as he heard the heavy breathing of the men who were chasing them.

“Almost there.”

And they were, because at the end of the long corridor was a door, and hanging over that was a red-lit EXIT sign. It was one of the more welcome sights to have met Spike’s eyes in ages. Riley sped up a bit, his feet pounding desperately, Spike just behind him.

Riley thudded against the door with his full body weight. An alarm immediately began to sound, shrill and piercing, but the door opened and Riley rushed out into the night with Spike hard on his heels. They were in the car park, acres of empty pavement surrounded by a chain-link fence and, beyond that, the desert. Sand and short, prickly plants and rounded granite outcroppings. Spike could just make out the front end of Riley’s SUV, perhaps a hundred yards away. They sprinted for it.

They had covered three-quarters of the distance when the gunfire began. It was rapid and shockingly loud, tearing the quiet fabric of the night like claws through tissue paper. Riley dropped to the ground. At first Spike thought he was trying to dodge the bullets. Spike bent over him and began to haul him upright—they were much too far from the car to make it by crawling. But then Spike heard the hitch of Riley’s breath and smelled blood.

“Get up and run,” Spike urged, tugging the man’s heavy body.

“Can’t. It’s my leg. Take the stone.” Riley started to fumble with the zipper on his pocket.

“Bloody _hell_,” Spike said. His exclamation was punctuated by more gunfire.

Without pausing to think about what he was doing—there was no sodding time for that—Spike scooped Riley into his arms and ran. “Stop bloody squirming!” he growled at Riley.

“Just take the rock, Spike. You’ll be faster.”

While Riley was undoubtedly correct, Spike didn’t obey. Now that he’d half-rescued the man, he couldn’t find it in himself to simply dump him to the ground, leaving him at the mercy of the men behind them. Men who worked for a company that didn’t mind turning humans into zombies, apparently. “Just hang on,” Spike said, and willed his feet to move just a bit faster.

He almost made it. But just before they got to the SUV, another volley of shots rang out. Several of them pierced his body, making him stumble forward. Others pinged against the tarmac and the metal of Riley’s truck. Spike screamed and fell, landing atop Riley, thinking that surely some of the bullets must have gone into Riley as well.

But Riley rolled out from underneath Spike, crawled the few feet to the truck, and managed to pull himself up enough to yank open the door. Spike curled into a ball, expecting to hear the SUV zooming away. But instead, a huge hand grabbed Spike’s bicep and dragged him across the pavement, jarring his injuries so painfully that Spike teetered on the edge of consciousness. He wasn’t aware enough to know how Riley managed to pull him into the SUV, but suddenly there Spike was, flopped onto the back seat. The engine roared to life, the vehicle began to move, and the driver's door slammed shut. A bullet shattered one of the side windows; Spike heard it zing just inches over his head before it punched through the door on the opposite side.

“Shit shit shit shit,” Riley chanted, but he didn’t stop driving.

Spike gripped the edge of the seat and tried not to fall off. He had no idea how many bullets had hit him, or exactly where, only that his entire torso felt like it had gone through a wood chipper. Twice. He faintly heard a moaning sound, and realizing he was making it, and clenched his jaw tightly. But he couldn’t hold back a screech of agony when the SUV hit the chain-link fence with a crunch and a shudder. It occurred to Spike that perhaps the big vehicle hadn’t been all about vanity after all. Then the truck bounced over something big and Spike’s vision went black.

 

***

 

He awoke to so much pain that he immediately wished he were still unconscious. But he blinked his eyes open anyway. Above him was a wooden ceiling. It sagged dangerously in some places, while in others there were small holes that let in beams of bright sunlight. Spike moved about a bit, trying to get some sense of where he was, but even the smallest motion made his vision gray and he quickly stilled.

A face appeared over him. It was streaked with dirt and dried blood, and the hair was in wild disarray, but Spike recognized him anyhow. “Finn,” he croaked.

“In the flesh.”

“Where?”

Riley looked around for a moment. “I think it used to be a garage or outbuilding of some kind. There’s a fallen-down little house next door. Don’t know who would live here, out in the middle of nowhere.”

“You’re alive?”

“Yeah. Thanks to you, I guess. Busted my leg, but at least I’m not swiss cheesed like you.”

Spike focused a bit more and realized that Riley was leaning on improvised crutches made of metal piping, and that his leg was splinted with what appeared to be a broken-off chair leg. “Where are they?” Spike asked.

“We lost ‘em. We’re safe here, for a while anyway. But you need help. I don’t think my bandaging has done you much good.”

Spike looked down at himself. He was naked. His chest was wrapped in strips of fabric—most of them formerly his own shirt—and he was blanketed by his duster, which was now badly tattered. “Need blood.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Riley sighed. “I can’t get any cell service out here. And the Sequoia’s busted. The radiator must’ve got hit. Even if I could fix it, there’s no water here. I’m gonna have to walk…uh, hobble to a phone. Out here, with my leg, that might take a couple of days.”

Spike closed his eyes. What answer could he give to that?

“Spike, what happens if you don’t feed soon?”

“Won’t dust. Won’t mend, either.” He didn’t bother to re-open his lids. They hurt, too.

“Shit.” There was a brief silence, punctuated only by the sound of Riley’s steady breathing. Then Riley grunted slightly and his crutches clattered against the floor. Spike opened his eyes and saw Riley kneeling over him, left wrist stretched towards Spike. Offering.

Spike could only blink at him in astonishment.

Riley moved his arm closer until it was inches from Spike’s face. Spike could feel the heat emanating from the man’s body. “Come on,” Riley said. “I know you want to. Just don’t take too much, okay? I lost some when I was shot and I’ve got a good trek ahead.”

“But—”

“I can see the pain written all over your face. I can’t just leave you here like that, can I? Maybe this’ll take the edge off a little. Hurry, though. I want to get going.”

Spike knew he should refuse, but he didn’t have the strength for it. With a slight moan, he shifted to his demon face. He tried to raise his arms, to pull the wrist closer, but it hurt too much. That was all right, though. Riley lowered his arm the last little bit until his skin was actually resting against Spike’s mouth. Against his fangs. Spike only had to lift his head a fraction and then his teeth were sliding in.

Spike and Riley whimpered in unison. It wasn’t a sound of pain, not for either of them. Riley’s blood trickled over Spike’s tongue, hot and alive. Spike hadn’t fed directly from a human in ages, and it tasted so bloody brilliant it was almost worth having his body torn to pieces. He swallowed and felt the liquid begin to course through him. It wouldn’t be enough to mend him completely, not by a long shot, but ravaged tissues began to knit and Spike felt the deep aches fade just a bit.

He’d closed his eyes again while he fed. When he opened them, he saw Riley swaying slightly over him, his lids screwed tightly shut, his mouth hanging slightly open. Spike felt a surge of stupid and irrational arousal. He carefully withdrew his fangs, changed his face back, and then chastely pressed his lips to the pinprick wounds in wordless thanks.

Riley’s eyes drifted open and he gazed down at Spike with a slightly dazed look. “Man. I’d forgotten….”

Spike managed a small smile. “Go get help, soldier boy.”

Riley nodded dumbly, retrieved his crutches, and heaved himself to his feet. He shuffled to the door and then he was gone.

 

***

 

Spike breathed deeply and slowly in an attempt to control the pain. It had grown hot in the little building, so hot that every breath felt as if it were searing his lungs. It was as if he were burning beneath Sunnyhell again. He looked warily at the sunlight that snuck in through the holes in the roof, decided there wasn’t much he could do about it if the beams were to reach him, and finally dozed off.

Later—how much later, he had no idea—the sun faded away and the temperature dropped. He could hear creatures scurrying outside. Rodents, lizards, something larger that was perhaps a fox or a small coyote. He shifted slightly. Riley had folded Spike’s jeans and placed them under Spike’s head as a makeshift pillow, but the floor was hard and splintery under Spike’s shoulders and arse. Spike was too weak to even sit up, though, let alone try to find someplace more comfortable.

It was a long night.

And the following day was even longer, the heat even more oppressive than the first day. Spike wondered if Riley had made it to a phone yet. Perhaps he’d collapsed along the way and was already dead and soon he’d be nothing but another set of bleached bones littering the desert floor. Spike found that image surprisingly dismaying. Perhaps Riley had found his way to safety and gone away for good, caring more about a clean escape than the vampire desiccating in an abandoned shed.

When the sun went away again and Spike began to shiver weakly under his duster, he heard the hum of an engine approaching. He scooted over a few inches, up against the wall, knowing it would offer him no safety if these were the blokes from Simmons-Earl. The door crashed open.

Three large bodies crowded into the shed. One of them was quite slender, while the others were muscular. One of those was limping badly.

“Spike,” said Angel, hurrying to his side. “Here.” A straw was thrust into Spike’s mouth and he drank noisily, greedily. It was cow’s blood, but it was _blood_ and it was lovely to feel it filling his belly. When the cup was drained, Angel took the straw away.

“Let’s get him out of here,” Angel said. “We can give him more on the way.”

Strong hands lifted him. They were being careful, he could tell that, but it still hurt. Soon enough he was being set down in the back of another SUV. His head was pillowed in Angel’s wool-trousered lap, and Angel was stroking the hair away from Spike’s face gently, probably without realizing he was doing it. “We’ll be home in about two hours,” said a voice from the driver’s seat. Wes. “The medical staff at Wolfram &amp; Hart is waiting to attend to you both.”

“Just take it easy on the bumps, okay?” said Riley.

The car jostled on its way, and Spike hoped they found a smoothly paved road soon.

After Angel had given Spike several more cups of blood, Spike realized that Riley was twisted around in his seat, watching him.

“Cheers for the rescue,” Spike said.

Riley grinned. “I figure we’re even. Maybe more than even. You kind of saved the world. Again.”

Spike couldn’t resist a small smirk in Angel’s direction, before he turned his gaze back to Riley. Perhaps he was delusional from the pain and all, but he thought that he saw something in those astonishing blue eyes. Only a flash. But maybe Angel saw it as well, because suddenly his grip on Spike’s shoulder tightened possessively.

Spike felt a smile settle on his lips. “You know, soldier boy, I’ll wager Wolfram &amp; Hart could do with someone with your experience. Could find you a nice, posh office…you’d have enough dosh saved up for university in no time.”

Riley tilted his head a bit. Then his eyes crinkled at the corners. “What about the fringe benefits?” Oh yes, that…something…it was definitely there.

“Negotiable.”

Angel made an annoyed huff, but they both ignored him.

Riley said, “Would I have to promise not to stake anyone?”

Spike’s smile turned into a full-fledged leer. “Also negotiable.”

And they both laughed, which bloody well hurt Spike’s chest, but at the same time felt really, really good.

 

_\---fin---_

 


End file.
